


The One Adventure...

by LiteratiAngel92



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29469276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiteratiAngel92/pseuds/LiteratiAngel92
Summary: "You hate him. Every fibre of his impossible being. You hate him for being everything that you’ve always abhorred; the destroyer of worlds, the killer of species, bristling with war and blood and battle and rage... Somehow, he has the very worst of you. And the very best. Just another reason to hate him."Ten battles with his feelings about his clone during the time between the Crucible and Darlig Ulv Stranden.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	The One Adventure...

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know where this came from - it just popped into my head today. Nothing groundbreaking here, just a little angsty introspection into Ten's feelings about his double, Rose, and himself. Not especially kind to Ten, admittedly. Don't get me wrong, I love him, I just don't necessarily think he always loved himself.

** The One Adventure…  
  
**

You hate him. Every fibre of his impossible being. You hate him for being everything that you’ve always abhorred; the destroyer of worlds, the killer of species, bristling with war and blood and battle and rage. Where is the glimmer of the man for whom ‘genocide’ was synonymous with ‘over my dead body’? Somehow, he has the very worst of you. _And the very best_.  
  
Just another reason to hate him.  
  
You hate him because he can be everything you’re not: open, vulnerable, _human_. Somehow, that’s worse than the apparent predilection for bloodshed because, if for just one shining second you could be anything in the world, you would be human. Humans, after all, have permission to feel like he does; hopelessly, irretrievably, wholeheartedly in love. Time Lords, you reflect, just don’t have that luxury. Immortality is some vague, glittering concept to humans who will never achieve it. The idea that you could spend forever with the people you love, never dying, never changing, just clinging on to your heart and soul and life for the rest of the universe. It’s a pretty picture.  
  
The reality is very different. You know that you told her that, that you told her how cold and lonely ‘forever’ really is. You also know that she never really believed you. Perhaps _you_ didn’t really believe you either… Yes, Sarah Jane’s reappearance was the perfect excuse to explain the realities of your life, but somewhere, deep down, you never really believed that it would happen to you and Rose. _At least, not until it did._ You always had a glowing vision of the two of you together in years to come, her blonde hair faded to a soft white, her hands spotted with the signs of a full life, her eyes glimmering with the wisdom and happiness of years and the surety of your presence. You’d always wondered if that would have been enough for her; to grow old by your side, bathed in your unspoken affection. Perhaps that was why you had accepted her ‘forever’ so easily…  
  
You’re a different man now.  
  
If you’re honest, that’s really why you hate him. He hasn’t lived through heartbreak, through loneliness and fear. Oh yes, he might _remember_ it – that feeling of loss and emptiness that accompanies so many of your thoughts – but he has never _lived_ it. Not really. It’s just a ghost of a feeling to him. Someone else’s memories. Finally, you suppose, hate must really mean envy… You _envy_ him. His ability to experience without fear, to love without caveat, to feel without thought.  
  
If you were a kinder man, you might consider how being your double might affect him; how he will be forever defined by your actions and your experiences before he even has time to cement his own, how the shame that he feels for his recent actions isn’t really his at all, but a reflection of your disapproval. Worse still, how the love he feels for her will never truly be his at all. Of course, he will develop his own over time, those feelings of devotion that will grow from real shared experiences, but there will always be a small part of him that wonders if he would have chosen her if it wasn’t for your pre-existing feelings…and whether she would have chosen him if you had been brave enough to say it for yourself.  
  
 _If_ you were a kinder man. _But you’re not.  
  
_ As you watch him kiss her, you remember with cruel clarity how soft and warm her lips felt against yours, how her hands had slipped easily, passionately into your hair, pulling you close as she is now doing with him. It’s a gut punch when you also remember the fact that the kiss you’re remembering wasn’t actually her, but someone manipulating her. In fact, you’ve never kissed _Rose_. Not even when you last regenerated for the sake of saving her. She will never remember either of your kisses; neither of them will ever ring true for either of you. For her, they never happened. For you, they were poor copies of a truth that will really only ever be a nice little fantasy. As far as she’s concerned, you’re ultimately platonic, however much she might have hoped that you wanted more. _Him_ , on the other hand. Now, only _he_ will know what it’s like to be enveloped in her arms like that, to feel her smaller frame fitting so perfectly into the contours of… _your_ body. While _you_ can only imagine.  
  
You think that might kill you. In some ways – much later – it does.  
  
Leaving helps. You’ve always been the man who runs away, and this situation is no different. A different man – a _better_ man – might have stayed. But of course, you’re not better, you’re not brave; you’re a cowardly shell of the man that the universe puts up on a pedestal. And there it is – the saddest, truest assessment of your character – there, in the emptiness of your ship: you don’t deserve her. Maybe you never have. All you can hope for now is that, one day, he might _earn_ her on your behalf, and that that just _might_ be enough for you.  
  
You hate him. _Every fibre of his impossible being_. Except that maybe you don’t. Maybe you just hate yourself…


End file.
